On Remembering 9/11
I generally like Tom Engelhardt, and agree with a substantial amount of this column, but his objections to the construction of the Freedom Tower and our 9/11 remembrance more generally are off-base. Of course, the "Freedom Tower" is a ridiculous name and reminiscent of the worst rhetorical excesses of the early Bush years. Engelhardt, though, thinks we should just forget about the whole thing:
Let's just can it all. Shut down Ground Zero. Lock out the tourists. Close "Reflecting Absence," the memorial built in the "footprints" of the former towers with its grove of trees, giant pools, and multiple waterfalls before it can be unveiled this Sunday. Discontinue work on the underground National September 11 Museum due to open in 2012. Tear down the Freedom Tower (redubbed 1 World Trade Center after our "freedom" wars went awry), 102 stories of "the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States". (Estimated price tag: $3.3 billion.)
Eliminate that still-being-constructed, hubris-filled 1,776 feet tall building, planned in the heyday of George W Bush and soaring into the Manhattan sky like a nyaah-nyaah invitation to future terrorists. Dismantle the other three office towers being built there as part of an $11 billion government-sponsored construction program. Let's get rid of it all. If we had wanted a memorial to 9/11, it would have been more appropriate to leave one of the giant shards of broken tower there untouched.
Engelhardt's point, which he makes in subsequent paragraphs, is that 9/11 led to all sorts of negative consequences due to the terrible decisions made by the Bush Administration. I don't deny this, and in fact said largely the same thing in my last post. But what does Engelhardt think leaving the "giant shards of broken tower untouched" would have accomplished? It certainly wouldn't have prevented Bush from going ahead with his foreign policy. Nor do I think erecting the tower more than a decade after the attacks will lead Americans to reconsider their opposition to the Iraq War and other unpopular elements of Bush's foreign policy. It isn't like we Americans commemorate the day Bush stood up and announced "mission accomplished".
Rebuilding a structure that was destroyed in an act of war isn't hubristic. It's common. Has Engelhardt been to Rotterdam, Berlin, or Tokyo? All three cities were destroyed during the Second World War, and all three were painstakingly rebuilt in the years after the war's conclusion. As far as I know neither Engelhardt nor anyone else has seriously suggested they shouldn't have.
Pointing out that the decade since 9/11 has been disastrous for the US is fair enough, but arguing that trying to rebuild the towers was a bad idea simply doesn't pass muster.
September 10th, 2011 - 08:41
> Rebuilding a structure that was destroyed in an act of war isn’t hubristic. It’s common. Has Engelhardt been to Rotterdam, Berlin, or Tokyo? All three cities were destroyed during the Second World War, and all three were painstakingly rebuilt in the years after the war’s conclusion.
Well, actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church
September 12th, 2011 - 17:00
The World Trade Centre wasn’t destroyed in an act of war. It was destroyed in an act of terrorism. Rebuilding cities after war is as common as muck – everybody does it, because everybody has had to do it. Pubs and hotels and similar such places have had to be rebuild after acts of terrorism, but never office buildings of the magnitude of the WTC. It’s also hard to think of any other act of terrorism that had such a huge death toll (although I did note with interest that the Pinochet regime that seized power on September 11, 1973, achieved a fairly similar death toll – if one can call that an achievement, and if one can compare a military dictatorship with an act of terrorism). Therefore I do think there can be a fair amount of discussion over how to treat the site of the attacks. I think the site, no matter what form it takes in the future, should be considered sacred ground in honour of the victims, and that that means all political concerns, left, right or otherwise, should simply be removed from the equation.